Internet Filters: Voluntary OK, Not Government Mandate

People are talking about internet content filtering, especially since the ACLU won its case against the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which tried to censor all speech about sex from the internet. But don’t be confused between voluntary use of filters as an alternative to a criminal statute and governmentally imposed filters. ACLU First Amendment attorney Chris Hansen explains more about filtering and when it works and doesn’t.

Filtering has been shown to be quite successful in blocking sexual sites, but at a price — it over-blocks. As much as 20 percent of all internet content can be over-blocked by some filters, including valuable nonsexual material. Reports by the Kaiser Family Foundation (PDF), Consumer Reports, and the Free Expression Policy Project (PDF) have all found that filters improperly block important web sites about health, sex education, civil rights, and politics. A recent test by the San Jose Public Library (PDF) of three software filtering programs even found substantial over-blocking of information in resource databases and online catalogs of available books. Parents can decide that price is worth paying but it is another thing altogether for the government to make that decision for all of us.

The Bush Justice Department "torture memos," some still secret, are believed to have been used to provide legal justification for the covert use of classified, silent microwave radiation weapons on U.S. citizens -- "targeted" under the pretext of the "war on terror" as "undesirables" and "dissidents."

Victims, including the journalist who authored the articles linked below, say these painful, debilitating and illness-inducing microwave assaults constitute torture and "slow-kill," a military descriptive for prolonged assaults that eventually result in death -- what could be described as an American genocide.

Victims of these assaults say their family finances are decimated by an array of secret "programs of personal financial destruction" that involve the forced cooperation of private enterprise; surveillance and interception of mail and telecommunications; and the forging of billing, utility, banking and mortgage statements -- what they charge is a process of expropriation and theft by deception.

Sources say these covert programs were justified by the Bush Justice Department under legal theories that are said to include a suspected "nexus to terrorism" and, according to a source, the legal theory that weapons and/or medical experimentation on U.S. citizens is permissible if subjects are under federal investigation for suspected offenses.

These microwave weapons assaults have continued under the Obama administration, and are facilitated by an "extrajudicial punishment network" enabled by federal agencies; local police nationwide; and "community gang stalker" citizen vigilantes fronted by government-funded community policing and volunteer organizations.

***

Victims have asked the FBI/Justice Department to launch a civil rights investigation. They say officials have told them they see nothing to investigate, and hint that victim accounts are delusional.

Victims maintain that marginalizing the persecuted as "unstable" or "mentally ill" is a tactic being used to cover up crimes against humanity, a highly organized and well-funded social genocide.

Vic Livingston

When I tried to sign in, I got the message that my account was still "deactivated." But the system still let me into the article comment web form, which also allowed me to enter my commentary.

BUT WHEN I HIT THE SUBMIT BUTTON THE FUNCTION WAS DISABLED. THE SUBMIT LINK WAS "DEAD."

I can't get a straight answer from Politico.com; my emails asking why I am still banned are not answered. (A voice on the phone had told me it was because I made duplicate posts to multiple threads, something posters do all the time at Politico, with apparent impunity.)

BUT THE NON-RESPONSE MAY NOT BE POLITICO'S DOING.

Because it appears most of my email is being intercepted. Most of my outgoing email do not bring a response.

Phone calls are not productive, because ALL of my telecommunications seem to be intercepted. Follow-up calls to Politico.com have gone unanswered.

Perhaps someone reading this could relay this post to Politico editor John Harris by posting to his personal web form:

Vic Livingston

The comment was in response to a posting of an article I authored entitled "Domestic Torture Via Radiation Weapnry: America's Horrific Shame," which has received worldwide distribution.

The fact that I am prohibited from posting to multiple web sites, including some of those that are vital to my ability to function as a journalist, tells me that free speech is virtually dead in America.

HERE IS THE CENSORED POST:

I'm the author of the posted article. Very interesting to read the comments here -- a number of which read like actual, legitimate comments as opposed to what is deposited on my blog site, where most comments read like lame, often sadistic psy ops (but with some valuable kernels of truth offered by closet humanists).

This is not some private enterprise, although private companies are involved, as in any fascist organization where government co-opts private businesses to gain societal control. This extrajudicial punishment network is a "multi-agency action" of various agencies. I agree with some others, such as Peter Mooring in the Netherlands, that among the "lead agencies" worldwide are armed forces, intel agencies, law enforcement and at the top of the food chain secretive security services. This is a global control mechanism accountable to no public body -- with serious geopolitical ramifications for human liberty.

The mainstream media from which I spring does not have a clue that global military, security and intelligence agencies appear to have taken over the world by way of these secretive "programs, employing silent, deadly microwave radiation weaponry to quell potential "dissent." DON'T call these instruments "directed energy weapons;" that term reeks of obfuscation and disinformation. The term is deceptively benign.

In the interest of free speech, I would ask real readers here to please visit my blog site and leave some responses. I should be able to distinguish the true coin from the phony slugs.

Or, this could be a training exercise for the "black hats": "Fool the 'targets.'"

Live up to your mission and represent we, the censored, in a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government and its various intelligence agencies and other agencies that have failed to protect free speech in America.

March 10, 2009

8:18 PM

Vic Livingston

New Twists on Apparent Government Censorship and Prior Restraint of Internet Speech...

ACLU: This is MALICIOUS INTERFERENCE AND HARASSMENT via telecommunications. These "psy ops" tactics are applied on an ad hoc basis, seemingly based on the CONTENT of internet postings and knowledge of the personal preferences of the "targeted" persons.

THIS IS OUTRIGHT CENSORSHIP AND HARASSMENT. The examples posted on this thread lay the basis for a CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT on behalf of Americans whose telecommunications are subject to unconstitutional surveillance, interception and malicious tampering.

THESE ARE DIFFERENT GROUNDS than presented by the ACLU lawsuit challenging pervasive NSA warrantless wiretapping.

THIS IS MALICIOUS INTERFERENCE with telecommunications, using electronic communications as a TOOL OF GOVERNMENT HARASSMENT.

***

PLEASE, ACLU, LIVE UP TO YOUR MISSION.

Please file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the untold thousands of Americans whose telecommunications are subject not only to warrantless surveillance, but to MALICIOUS, SADISTIC INTERFERENCE WITH TELECOMMUNICATIONS.

This NOT just a "free speech" issue. It appears that GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE PROGRAMS ARE BEING USED AS A TOOL OF HARASSMENT AND SOCIAL CONTROL, A FORM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HARASSMENT.

March 11, 2009

11:55 AM

Vic Livingston

ATTEMPTS TO POST TO AMERICAN CONSTITUTION SOCIETY BLOG ELICITS 'HELD FOR BLOG OWNER' MESSAGE, BUT SOMETIMES THE POST NEVER APPEARS.

Attention American Constitution Society staff:

My experience indicates that rogue government surveillance agents are using "spoofed pages" to prevent innocent but "targeted" U.S. citizens from making posts to your web site.

On two recent occasions, this writer has received the "held for blog owner" message, which notes that this feature is reserved for "first-time" posters.

However, I have successfully posted before.

I believe the CONTENT of my comments determines whether government fusion center operatives allow the post.

The incidents outlined above seem to indicate that the government is exercising prior restraint and censorship of internet telecommunications, especially in the case of political speech.

I would suggest that ACS exercise ex post facto moderation of its blog, to thwart attempts by rogue surveillance operatives to use moderation as a pretext for censorship.

ACS members: Please forward the link to this page to your executives. As explained above, my ability to do so apparently is persistently circumscribed.

And if any of you would like to represent me and similarly affected persons in a class-action lawsuit against the relevant government agencies and/or private contractors who are violating constitutionally guaranteed rights, please leave contact information here, or at http://My.NowPublic.com/scrivener.

Since my email appears to be subject to persistent interception and often does not get answered, I ask that you make contact via a blog post.

March 11, 2009

3:09 PM

Vic Livingston

ONCE AGAIN, AN ATTEMPTED POST TO THE WASHINGTONPOST.COM'S 'THE FIX' BLOG ELICITS THE 'HELD FOR BLOG OWNER' MESSAGE...

Another apparent instance of blatant, persistent censorship/prior restraint on the part of rogue government surveillance operatives.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the post that was subject to prior restraint and/or censorship (I say "and/or" because the apparent censors may relent after this protest is lodged):

The Bush Justice Department "torture memos," some still secret, are believed to have been used to provide legal justification for the covert use of classified, silent microwave radiation weapons on U.S. citizens -- "targeted" under the pretext of the "war on terror" as "undesirables" and "dissidents."

Victims, including the journalist who authored the articles linked below, say these painful, debilitating and illness-inducing microwave assaults constitute torture and "slow-kill," a military descriptive for prolonged assaults that eventually result in death -- what could be described as an American genocide.

***

ACLU, the forces of draconian government are mocking those who value freedom of speech. These operatives violate daily the constitutional rights of untold thousands of "innocent but targeted" citizens.

Sometimes, but not always, after I post here at ACLU, the censors relent and let the post go through -- but usually, only after I make some material changes that could be construed as a "watering down" of the intended message.

The intent seems to be to send me a message: "We are watching you, and you are in our control."

ACLU, I say once again: This is the face of creeping fascism.

Please consider using the above contemporaneous log as the basis for a class-action suit challenging pervasive, intrusive, malicious and unconstitutional surveillance of, and interference with, the telecommunications of innocent but apparently "targeted" U.S. citizens.

March 13, 2009

8:59 AM

a concerned per...

Mr. Livingston, I think you're posts are being "held" because you're a nutcase!